Garden Hoses

Weather: We’ve had clouds, and even rain on Thursday night, even though the satellite showed little moisture moving over the area.  Most of it probably was evaporation from the fire sites that hovered in the atmosphere.

Last useful rain: 7/14.  Week’s low: 59 degrees F.  Week’s high: 96 degrees F in the shade.  Winds were up to 32 mph in Los Alamos on Tuesday.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, fern bush, caryopteris, bird of paradise, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, red tipped yucca, daylilies, Russian sage, sweet peas, purple garden phlox, bouncing Bess, rose of Sharon, hollyhocks, pink evening primrose, Shasta daisies, cultivated sunflowers, black-eyed Susan, lance leaf coreopsis, yellow yarrow

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Apache plume, Illinois bundle flower, datura, bindweed, green leaf five eyes, silver leaf nightshade, alfalfa, white sweet clover, vetch, white prairie evening primrose, toothed spurge, fern leaf and leather leaf globe mallows, purslane, yellow mullein, buffalo gourd, Queen Anne’s lace, velvetweed, stick leaf, alfilerillo, lamb’s quarter, prostrate knotweed, goat’s heads, Hopi tea, strap leaf and golden hairy asters, goat’s beards, native dandelion; brome, needle, side oats grama, rice, barnyard, three awn, and quack grasses

What’s coming up beyond the walls and fences:  Áñil del muerto

What’s blooming in my yard: Miniature roses, yellow potentilla, cliff rose, tamarix cultivar, garlic chives, daylily cultivars, Johnson blue geranium, Dutch clover, white spurge, Maltese cross, David phlox, large leaf soapwort, lead plant, sidalcea, winecup mallow, ladybells, coral beard tongues, golden spur columbine, perennial four o’clock, blue flax, sea lavender, catmints, Saint John’s wort, tomatillo, watermelon, Mönch aster, Mexican hats, chrysanthemum, chocolate flowers, plains coreopsis, blanket flowers, anthemis, gloriosa daisies, white yarrow, purple coneflowers; remnants of spring buds

I planted one of those seed mixtures growers use to sell their less expensive seeds or lots too small to be worth the cost of packaging separately.  Last year, I put one in the bed by the driveway that serves as a retaining wall for dirt traveling downhill.  I had few expectations, but was pleasantly surprised when a number of species bloomed.  This year, so far, the annual baby’s breath and sweet alyssum are blooming.  The latter are taller than the ones sold separately that never seem to germinate.

What bedding plants are blooming: Pansies, snapdragons

Animal sightings: Rabbit, two hummingbirds, house finch, western chickadees, woodpecker on utility pole, geckoes, black swallowtail butterfly, hawkmoths, dragonfly, bumble and small bees, hornets, grasshoppers, sidewalk ants, earth worms; hear crickets

Tasks: The humidity has encouraged everything to grow.  All one’s work comes undone, if one expects to step back and see an area cleared of weeds and other distractions.  Shrubs and trees that were pruned in spring have stuck out new branches.  I can push the apricot stems and catalpa pods aside, but will have to deal with thorny rose canes that are intruding into my space.

I’m not the only one.  During the week I hear people out with string trimmers; on Saturday morning I heard rider mowers.

Weekly update: This week I drove by someone who was using a garden hose to tamp down dust from yard work.  I noted the futility of the woman’s effort because she had no nozzle and the water limply fell to the ground.

As I drove on, I realized this wasn’t a question of ignorance, but a symbol of the habits we develop as children that are determined by our physical environments.

I grew up in a small town in the Midwest with city water.  Water pressure was never a problem.  In summer, kids would sometimes turn a hose of each other.  Usually, there was a nozzle to disperse the water, but, if not, we learned how to stick our thumbs over hose openings to make water spray.  Of course, we got wet, but in the heat of summer that was the idea.

Now, I live beyond the reach of city water, and artesian wells are relatively new.  Traditionally, water here came from creeks and acequias.  One didn’t need a hose to deliver it, but a ditch.

The transition to urban uses is hampered by poor quality control by manufactures.  It has been years since I have purchased a nozzle that didn’t leak at the connector.  Water runs down the hose onto my sleeves or flows back to my slacks.  At a minimum, my hands get wet.  It’s not pleasant, but it’s summer.  My clothes dry.

That, too, is a response to discomfort learned in childhood.  What I tolerate, others won’t.

Notes on photographs: This past May I noticed leaves that looked like a vetch growing beside my Garage.  Since it could do no harm, I left it.  This week it began blooming, and it certainly looks like some kind of vetch, though I haven’t figured out which.  Pictures take 16 July 2022.